The state is providing $4.2 million to Colorado State University to pay for testing kits and the costs of processing them. CSU will test about 30 small to medium-sized facilities, while the state will handle the other homes, said Dr. Nicole Ehrhart, director of the university’s Columbine Health Systems Center for Healthy Aging.
The tests will be processed at the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at CSU. The lab joins the growing national trend of animal health laboratories helping test for COVID-19 in people.
From her vet school days volunteering at Colorado State University's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, through nearly two decades of work protecting animal health, and more than a year of interim leadership, Dr. Kristy Pabilonia has been named Director of Clinical Diagnostics for the Veterinary Health System.
The hospital is open, providing care to large and small animal patients for emergencies, critical follow-up appointments, and pharmacy orders.
Dr. Kristy Pabilonia, interim director for the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratories, said her laboratory accepted its first 60 nasopharyngeal swabs for testing in early April, following a few weeks of validation, resupply, and CLIA registration, which allows human health work pending an audit for full certification.
CSU’s new testing capability is a bright spot for Larimer County’s plan to expand regional testing capacity.
Prepared with the necessary certification for laboratory testing performed on humans, the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory is ready to help the local community process more coronavirus tests.
VIDEO: “It’s important that we also support the local community that we’ve benefited so much from Fort Collins. We’re working right now to see if we can support the local healthcare centers and nursing home environments in Larimer County and the surrounding area,” Karen Dobos told FOX31.
Speakers expressed their thanks for the collaboration which resulted in the creation of this multi-purpose center, which serves as a veterinary and crop laboratory, an extension service and an experimental station.
The Rocky Ford Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory provides a wide variety of testing services locally and handling of samples for all testing available through the CSU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory system.